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What happened to normal parents?

If you want to be a helicopter parent that is fine by me. I have no judgement on how others parent their children until it affects me. I'm a free range parent and not an extreme one either. I'm finding it harder and harder as my kids interact with others to get people to leave them the hell alone. If you see a child and their parent is not at their heels you do not have to stop what you are doing to find that child's mom. If you are concerned and you want to watch them for a minute, be my guest but lets cut the hysteria.

We were at the library, we go every week. My 2 year old and 4 year old were picking out a movie and my husband was 2 aisles away. My 2 year old walked to the next aisle to find my husband and there a woman spotted him and began to ask "where is your mommy? are you lost?" I was right around the corner and peeked my head around. Surely she wasn't talking about my son who was out of site for less than one minute. I said "I'm right here, he's fine" My son then continued to the next isle where he met up with my husband. The lady followed him! And then she said to my husband "are you his father? You just can't be too careful these days" The 2 year old ran to my husband and said "dada" by the way. She then proceeded to lecture my husband about how we can't let him out of our site for one second.

Excuse me. If my son isn't destroying property and he's with in ear shot of where I'm standing in a familiar place, then we are just fine. You can have your paranoia but I'd like you to contain it to your own person, thanks.

Last night we are at the park. Every parents seems to follow their kids all around the park like they have an invisible fishing line attached to them. My husband and I park our butts on a bench in the middle of the park so we can see the kids. There are three areas of the park. All at a slightly different level with steps but the whole park is maybe 50 feet at it's widest part.

My daughter goes to climb the monkey bars where two parents are hovering over their 3 year old son. She gets up two flights when I can hear the mom asking her "Where is your mommy" I go over there thinking she is doing something wrong, but no. This mom was concerned because she didn't see me. REALL? People, mind your own children!

A man in our local library walked up to a girl grabbed her ran into the bathroom, locked it behind him and raped her with people pounding on the door and telling him they were calling the cops. He didn't care that anyone was in ear shot or not. Just saying.

I agree to an extent, but I really don't let my kids out of my sight for a minute, especially in public. Maybe I'm fearful, maybe I'm just on top of my kids.. If I wasn't on top of them they're the kind to run away and play in clothing racks.

I definitely wouldn't go looking for a child's parent, I would just keep an eye on the kid for a minute until the parents were back in sight.

and little chance of happening ? your eight 800,00 per year is such a tiny number

dumbass

on average there is around 800,000 children who are reported missing 204,000 are non-parent abductions - where the child is taken by someone they do/don't know who isn't a family memberonly 115 of these 204,000 are defined as stereotypical kidnappings (i.e child kept over night, moved more than 50 miles from home, with the purpose of kidnap - or to be kept by the abductor for ever or killed) (79% of these are stranger abductions the other 21% are done by people who know the children)

Quoting Anonymous:

who said I wasn't watching my children at the store? Free range doesn't mean neglectful. I'm still alert and paying attention. I was right there the second someone else was speaking to my children. I'm not running around paranoid about things that have little to no chance of happening, doesn't mean I don't watch my kids.

Quoting Anonymous:

please come back and complain when someone kidnaps your child that you were kinda watching in the store

by Anonymous 1 - Original Poster
on Aug. 30, 2012 at 3:11 PM

Quoting nicmain:

Its seems like people are one extreme or the other anymore. Im more like you in that im laid back. I have a 2 and 4 year old and I dont follow thier every foot step. Ive been at the the park and had parents give me the evil eye for just sitting down on a bench.

my kids are the same age and I've actually had other parents feel the need to catch my 2 year old at the bottom of the slide. O.o

I don't hover around my children when they are at the playground. I like to let them have their fun. I am right there if something happens but I will not follow them around. and sometimes I see eyes on me thinking what the heck is she doing? not watching her children. I have an 11 year old and a 3 year old.

Granted the world has become a much more scary place now (or was it always this scary but we didn't know about it because 24 hour news and the internet didn't exist?) but I can remember summers in elementary school where all the moms on the street would shoo all us kids out of the house after breakfast and the bunch of us would spend the whole day running around the neighborhood. We needed to let someones mom know if we were going to the park or the corner store because both of those places were out of yelling range, but then off we went. Now you get a nasty phone call if you child is in your own fenced back yard without you in obvious sight.

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